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Hierarchical Assets

Assets can be hierarchical with other asset components.

A hierarchical asset is an asset with a hierarchical structure consisting of asset or product components. The hierarchical structure of a complex asset can consist of multiple levels and sub-levels of asset or product components and sub-components. There is no restriction on the number of levels or the number of components that can comprise a complex hierarchical asset. Asset components can be serialized or non-serialized. For example, a computer is a parent asset that has child assets: a motherboard (Part # M, Qty 1, Serial # 123), RAM (Part # RAM, Qty 16, no Serial #), and so on.

A customizable asset is an asset that is instantiated from a configurable product. It can be customized by eConfigurator. For information about configurable products, see Product Administration Guide.

Components of a hierarchical asset inherit some properties of the top-level asset. Changing the following fields of the top or parent level asset of a hierarchical asset changes the same fields in all installed components: Account (and all Account-related fields; for example, Site, Address Line 1, and so on), Owner, Ownership, and Organization.

Inheritance applies whether the change is initiated by a user action or by an automated process. Changes to the components occur when a user updates the fields mentioned in the previous paragraph and the record is saved. Only the top-level asset's fields can be updated. The fields of component assets are read-only.

Siebel Field Service offers views to display complex asset hierarchies. For more information, see Explorer View and Explorer Across Organizations View.